The current rate of suicide among soldiers should make us angry, maybe enough to destroy our computers or, heaven forbid, write to congress or even try to stop war.
I checked out this institution¸ the National Center for Veterans Studies, the best I could. I am not sure why the Department of Defense and the Department of the Air Force seem to have a love affair with this division of the University of Utah.
Of their current projects, some of the proposed studies are randomized clinical trials of various therapies as suicide preventives. I am a great believer in research. But there is one question I am asked frequently, still, although I evaluate research but am not currently engaged in it. People ask me if I am a doctor first or a researcher first. There is absolutely no contest. I am a doctor first. I want lives saved, first. Read more on Why Soldiers Commit Suicide These Days…
Filed under News, politics by on Oct 11th, 2013. Comment. 
Turns out, while most veterans appreciate a stranger saying “thank you” for their service, it can also be a bit uncomfortable. I wonder how these same guys feel about the “Have you thanked a veteran today?” bumper stickers.
I’ve been thanking veterans for a long time. Sometimes, not as consistently as I’d like to because this doctor gig really means that I have to remember a large number of things. Since I began working in the medical marijuana field, where the veterans I meet are paying for a
Filed under military by on Dec 28th, 2012. Comment.
This is the quotation that was next to my picture, smiling and cuddling an electron microscope, in my high school yearbook: “Seek truth and do not part with it…” Yeah, I can’t be the first person who had that idea in mind at least a little bit when considering a research career.
There is a truth about the universe that is being revealed slowly. It takes us a while to get things right. I remember telling some people who thought religion and science were at odds with each other that perhaps whatever deity you believe in will only reveal what people will understand.
If an apple falling on Isaac Newton’s head was God’s way of revealing the laws of gravity to him, it was probably because the work of Galileo had already paved the way for this knowledge to be revealed. For the TRUTH to be revealed. Yet Newton was not ready for genetic recombination. Now, most scientists I know would accept that as universal truth. But, as Jack Nicholson said to Tom Cruise in “A Few Good Men,” — ” You can’t handle the truth…” (from the script by Aaron Sorkin). Read more on There Is Science and Then There is Military Science…
Filed under News, Research, Science by on Jul 12th, 2011. Comment.